Unlike California’s majestic rivers and massive dams and
conveyance systems, groundwater is out of sight and underground,
though no less plentiful. The state’s enormous cache of
underground water is a great natural resource and has contributed
to the state becoming the nation’s top agricultural producer and
leader in high-tech industries.
Groundwater is also increasingly relied upon by growing cities
and thirsty farms, and it plays an important role in the future
sustainability of California’s overall water supply. In an
average year, roughly 40 percent of California’s water supply
comes from groundwater.
A new era of groundwater management began in 2014 with the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which requires local
and regional agencies to develop and implement sustainable
groundwater management plans with the state as the backstop.
Could the limited successes in bringing together disparate
water interests in the San Joaquin Valley be a model for a
collaborative solution to the water woes facing Monterey
County? Local elected officials on Tuesday listened to an
architect of such an effort in the neighboring valley in hopes
that the growing loggerheads over securing additional,
permanent water sources in Monterey County can be
alleviated…. the Board of Supervisors invited Tim Quinn,
a Stanford University Landreth Visiting Fellow and past
president of the Association of California Water Agencies, to
brief them on the work he and colleagues have put in to bring
farmers, environmentalists, social justice advocates,
governments and water agencies together….
Despite opposition from an impressive who’s-who list of water
districts and agencies and the Kings County Farm Bureau, the
Kings County Board of Supervisors on a 3-2 vote adopted a
groundwater export ordinance that will require a permit to move
groundwater out of the county. Leading the charge was
Supervisor and farmer Doug Verboon, who says the passage came
after 12 years of battling to adopt an ordinance here to
protect local groundwater, an ordinance that most counties
already have. The county’s aim is to preserve groundwater for
local use, critical for both domestic, city, military and
agricultural users.
For almost four decades, water flowed faithfully from Fred and
Robin Imfeld’s private well here in rural Tehama County, a
region where thirsty orchards of walnuts, almonds, plums and
olives stretch across thousands of acres. But that
reliable supply of household water began to sputter last year,
and then ceased completely this summer amid
California’s driest three-year period on record.
… Across California, domestic wells are drying up in
record numbers due to severe drought and the overpumping
of underground aquifers. The crisis has hit rural farming
areas particularly hard and left some families to fend for
themselves or wait years for permanent solutions as nonprofits,
state water officials and well drillers struggle with a growing
backlog of assistance requests.
Zone 7 Water Agency staff are set to update the Pleasanton City
Council on Tuesday about its regional groundwater modeling and
PFAS contamination, which will serve as foundational
information in future council decision-making on water supply
issues. City staff will also seek approval from council to keep
the city’s wells 5 and 6 offline and to purchase replacement
water from Zone 7 until a water supply alternatives study is
completed and the council can decide what to do about the
city’s long-term water supply. According to the staff report,
“Zone 7 has indicated that it can provide the additional water,
initially through a short-term arrangement. This cost would be
funded by the Zone 7 pass-through to utility ratepayers.”
As drought dried up rivers and reservoirs across Europe this
year, grim warnings from the past surfaced from the depths.
Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine, read the inscription on a
“Hunger Stone” exposed on a bank of the River Elbe in the Czech
Republic: “If you see me, then weep.” Still, as bad as the
drought appeared on the surface, a new satellite analysis
estimating freshwater availability in Europe shows that “what’s
even worse is the groundwater story that people cannot see,”
says the hydrologist Jay Famiglietti, director of the Global
Institute for Water Security at Canada’s University of
Saskatchewan. Famiglietti and collaborators analyzed two
decades of data from the U.S./German satellite missions known
as GRACE to find the rate of change in freshwater stored on the
European continent.
In America’s rush to build the nuclear arsenal that won the
Cold War, safety was sacrificed for speed. Uranium mills that
helped fuel the weapons also dumped radioactive and toxic waste
into rivers like the Cheyenne in South Dakota and the Animas in
Colorado. … The U.S. government bankrolled the industry, and
mining companies rushed to profit, building more than 50 mills
and processing sites to refine uranium ore. But the
government didn’t have a plan for the toxic byproducts of this
nuclear assembly line. Some of the more than 250 million tons
of toxic and radioactive detritus, known as tailings, scattered
into nearby communities, some spilled into streams and some
leaked into aquifers. … But the government has fallen
down in addressing another lingering threat from the industry’s
byproducts: widespread water pollution.
When drought strikes, California farmers often pump water from
underground aquifers to water their crops. But increasingly dry
conditions are straining that resource. … [David
Freyberg of Stanford University] says many people are looking
at ways to replenish the state’s dwindling groundwater
supplies. In California, a lot of water typically comes
from winter snow that falls high in the mountains.
During warmer months, that snow melts and trickles down to
farmland. But as the climate warms, more precipitation is
falling as rain instead of snow. So it rushes into rivers and
runs past many areas where it’s needed.
Savannah Barteau dropped out of college to become a rancher
nearly nine years ago. Now, the 26-year-old Flagstaff native
runs the beef business at Date Creek Ranch outside Wickenburg
with her husband. … Date Creek Ranch still uses
Knight’s grazing management techniques. It sells beef locally
instead of transporting cattle out of state. It uses water from
the creek instead of relying on groundwater or the Colorado
River. The ranch’s herd is only 120 head because the fewer
cattle on pastures, the better. In addition, Date Creek Ranch
recently installed solar panels that provide power to
structures on the property, irrigation and beef freezers.
I know a lot of people think of deserts as big, empty, lifeless
wastelands — that’s one of the reasons it can be tough to get
folks to care about protecting them. But when I moved to
Southern California from New England, my desert enchantment was
immediate and deep. One of the things that struck me most about
exploring the deserts here was that the slower I went, the more
I saw. … Take the Amargosa River, which flows for 185
miles and drains a 5,500-square-mile basin in Nevada and
California before feeding the aquifer remnants of ancient Lake
Manly in Death Valley. It’s the seventh-longest river in
California, but you could be forgiven for not noticing it,
since it spends almost all its time underground. Its water
provides habitat for the improbable Devil’s Hole pupfish
… -Written by Casey Schreiner, a writer, producer,
presenter and author who has taken over The Wild newsletter for
the next few months.
Things are popping in Baja’s emerging wine scene. Earlier this
century, there were only a dozen or so wineries. Now, there are
almost 200. By all indications, Valle de Guadalupe is ready to
take its place among the world-class gastronomic
destinations. But, under the surface, there’s something
larger lurking. “The big problem today is lack of water,”
says Camillo Magoni, the 82-year-old winemaker of Casa
Magoni, who’s worked 58 harvests in Baja. … San Diego
County’s own winegrowers are also facing a water crisis.
… With all the crises facing the world, some might
dismiss the issue of growing grapes for premium wine to be a
minor, bougie, first-world problem. But wine has always been a
window into much larger farming issues.
A handful of small valley communities will be able to move more
rapidly on water projects thanks to millions in funding
recently allocated by the state Department of Water Resources
(DWR) as part of its water resilience program. DWR awarded $86
million throughout the state. About $44 million of that will go
to small communities facing water insecurity through the
department’s Small Community Drought Relief Program. The
announcement of DWR’s ninth, and final, round of funding under
this program comes as more than 1,400 wells have gone dry
throughout the state this year, 369 of those in the San Joaquin
Valley, according to the state’s dry well reporting system. The
recently announced funding will help support five projects in
the San Joaquin Valley.
It is imperative more now than ever for residents of Sonoma
County to be aware of exactly how our groundwater resources are
being used. Understanding how much water is being pumped will
enable actual protections for our residential users that are
increasingly experiencing dry wells. In addition, knowledge of
groundwater pumping from wells will also ensure that the
important public trust resources we all hold dear are not
adversely impacted. It is time for these harmful practices to
come to an end. By challenging the County to fulfill their
public trust obligations in a robust and transparent way, we
can begin to rectify some of these past and ongoing harms, and
bring our groundwater use in line with the increasing realities
of climate change.
Kings County Supervisors took a crack at a long-promised push
to restrict the ability of swashbuckling Kings County farming
giants to sell their groundwater to far-flung southern
California locales. Tuesday, the Kings County Board of
Supervisors approved the Groundwater Export Ordinance, which
was initially conceived to reign-in major water players in the
area, including water maven John Vidovich. Instead, based
on lingering commentary from local farmers, it may only create
additional red tape with the lack of teeth necessary to stop
outsiders from buying up water rights for the express purpose
of selling the resources to Southern California water agencies.
Rumors sometimes lead to news stories and sometimes not. In the
case of Slippery Rock Ranch — TV mogul Dick Wolf’s property in
the Goleta foothills — the gossip was that Montecito residents
were filling their swimming pools with water from the ranch’s
aquifers. While a publicist with the ranch stated last
week that Slippery Rock was not selling water or filling
Montecito swimming pools, the Goleta Water District
confirmed that they quietly settled a long-simmering
water dispute with the Law & Order creator in
the sum of $10 million. In Santa Barbara Superior Court,
Slippery Rock Ranch and the Goleta Water District had disputed
since 2015 over possession of the rainwater sluicing off and
infiltrating down under the ranch. The Water District pointed
out that the ranch — 740 acres above the border of Los Padres
National Forest — was in a watershed that contributed to the
district’s Goleta Groundwater Basin.
In a deep muddy creek near Silicon Valley’s busiest freeway, a
large furry head pokes up. And then quickly submerges. The
brief sighting, along with a growing collection of video
footage, confirms something remarkable: After being hunted to
extinction in the 1800s, the North American beaver is returning
to the creeks of the San Francisco Bay Area. Ecosystem
explorers, beavers were re-introduced to Lexington Reservoir in
Los Gatos about four decades ago, and made homes in upper Los
Gatos Creek. Since then, they’ve expanded their range north
along the edge of the Bay to the Guadalupe River, Coyote Creek,
San Tomas Aquino Creek in the wetlands by Sunnyvale’s Water
Pollution Control Plant – and, now, Palo Alto’s Matadero Creek.
Conservationists have notified U.S. wildlife officials that
they will sue over delinquent decisions related to protections
for two rare fish species that are threatened by groundwater
pumping in the drought-stricken West. The Center for Biological
Diversity sent a formal notice of intent to sue the Fish and
Wildlife Service last week over the Fish Lake Valley tui chub
near the California-Nevada line and the least chub in southwest
Utah. Utah and Nevada are the driest states in the country, and
the planned lawsuits are among the many fronts on which
conservationists are battling water districts and the users
they cater to over plans to siphon water to either maintain or
expand consumption.
Thomas Birmingham, general manager of the massive Westlands
Water District since 2000, Wednesday announced plans to step
down at the end of 2022. His announcement follows the election
of four new members to the Westlands Board of Directors on Nov.
8 who would give a so-called “change coalition” a solid
majority of six seats on the nine-member board. The top
priority for the coalition is “a change in leadership,”
according to Sarah Woolf, who along with Jon Reiter helped
coordinate a group of increasingly frustrated Westlands farmers
to run the slate of change candidates, SJV Water
reported.
More than 500 households in the rural Arizona desert are set to
be without running water starting January, 1 2023, as first
reported by NBC News. The homes, located in Rio Verde
Foothills—an affluent, unincorporated community in the state’s
Maricopa County, were built without complying to Arizona’s
usual 100-year water supply requirement. Rio Verde Foothills
doesn’t have its own water system. Instead, people living in
the arid locale rely on private wells or water trucked up from
the nearby city of Scottsdale. However, in response to the
ongoing and worsening megadrought, Scottsdale declared late
last year that it would cease hauling water to communities
outside the city limits on Jan 1, 2023 and encouraged Rio Verde
Foothills to find an alternative. Now, with the set deadline
fast approaching, residents haven’t found a solution.
Drought conditions and the implementation of the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) are putting a squeeze on
California growers. Principal Analyst with the Almond Board of
California, Jesse Roseman said efforts to improve statewide
water storage and conveyance are underway. However, those are
more long-term solutions to current water constraints.
Implementing groundwater recharge projects in almond orchards
presents a more immediate option for helping to address water
issues in California. … Implementing groundwater
recharge projects in orchards can require frequent
communication with local irrigation districts and Groundwater
Sustainability Agencies. Roseman explained that projects can
often require new water rights, permits, and new conveyance.
However, the efforts can prove exceptionally beneficial when
surplus water is available.
Arizona State University and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced
Nov. 16 that the university will lead a multi-year Arizona
Water Innovation Initiative to provide immediate, actionable
and evidence-based solutions to ensure that Arizona will
continue to thrive with a secure future water supply, according
to a news release. Ducey has committed resources and has
asked ASU to work with industrial, municipal, agricultural,
tribal and international partners to rapidly accelerate and
deploy new approaches and technology for water conversation,
augmentation, desalination, efficiency, infrastructure, and
reuse.
The Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) Fall
Conference & Exhibition Nov. 29-Dec. 1 will draw local water
agency leaders from throughout California to Indian Wells for
three days of updates, analyses and perspectives on multiple
issues affecting the state’s water community. The event will
also feature an international perspective on water management
and connect attendees with a leader behind a movement to change
policy priorities in addressing catastrophic wildfires.
Delivering the Opening Breakfast keynote on Nov. 30, Ambassador
Marco Sermoneta, Consul General of Israel to the Pacific
Northwest, will share his insights about how Israel has
addressed water management challenges.
Recently, researchers from Stanford flew California skies on a
kind of airborne treasure hunt. Probing hundreds of feet into
the ground with electromagnetic signals, they were in search of
liquid gold – water, or more precisely a place to capture and
store it. … [Rosemary Knight, Ph.D., a researcher with
the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability] just released
a new study, confirming the airborne technology’s ability to
locate what is now popularly called “paleo valleys.” They’re
long, buried riverbed pathways created thousands of years ago
by the movement of glaciers that once covered the Sierra.
Filled with porous material, experts believe they could act
like a high-speed express lane to carry diverted flood water
deep into the aquifer.
Plans are advancing for importing water into the Indian Wells
Valley. At its Nov. 9 board meeting, the Indian Wells Valley
Groundwater Authority heard a presentation on three proposed
pipeline paths to get that water into IWV. The presentation was
given by Provost & Pritchard, a consulting group IWVGA
contracted to perform this imported water pipeline alignment
study. Jeff Davis–principal engineer with Provost &
Pritchard–presented the study to the IWVGA board. Davis told
the board that while there were many paths they investigated
for the pipeline, they’ve narrowed it down to three proposed
paths which each carry their own positive and negative aspects.
These three paths cross different regions of IWV, and are
therefore titled the West Alignment, the Central Alignment, and
the East Alignment.
Sacramento County officials on Friday said that two fuel tanks
at a Sacramento gas station have leaked gasoline into soil and
groundwater, though the risk to the general public is “very
low.” The county said the leak happened with two
underground fuel tanks at Bonfare Market and Gas Station, which
is located at 2600 Rio Linda Boulevard. A third underground
tank was not found to be faulty. The tanks have since been
emptied and are offline, the county said. The issues stem
from an initial report of a leak in February 2022, county
spokesperson Samantha Mott said. One tank was immediately
emptied and put out of service and an initial assessment did
not reveal groundwater contamination. Later, an
investigation as part of a clean-up plan found that gasoline
contamination had migrated, exposing groundwater to
contamination.
Noemi Barrera has spent four months without running water for
herself and her four children, and is among many people in
California living without it as wells across the state run
dry. … Tooleville sits on a well that is now
nearly unusable due to contamination from groundwater
overdrilling. The state stepped in last year after the
neighboring town Exeter refused to connect municipal water to
the community’s residents. … Barrera grew up in the
citrus-covered community but never faced this lack of running
water until she brought Ruby home from the hospital and could
not take a shower. And she is aware that many communities
across the state’s vital Central Valley are staring down the
same daily life, as their basins are depleted by
unprecedented drought and ongoing groundwater pumping.
A lawsuit over groundwater plans in the northern end of the San
Joaquin Valley is being closely watched as it could have
implications for how the state’s groundwater mandate moves
forward, according to a recent briefing on the issue at the
Kern Groundwater Authority. At the Nov. 16 meeting, authority
attorney Valerie Kincaid explained that the lawsuit, filed in
2020, seeks to have a court invalidate six groundwater plans in
the Delta-Mendota Subbasin, which runs along the western edge
of the valley from west of Fresno north to west of Modesto. The
Department of Water Resources filed an amicus brief in the
suit, which was bought by the California Sportfishing
Protection Alliance, Kincaid explained. An amicus, or friend of
the court brief, can be filed by a group that has a strong
interest in a case.
There’s no healthcare screener for water insecurity. The issue
is not even on most public health professionals’ radar… Most
estimates put U.S. water insecurity at 2.2 million
residents….Accurate data are essential to closing the water
gap because food insecurity increases the probability of water
insecurity…. You might think access to ample potable water is
a basic human right. Legally, in the U.S., it isn’t (although
California has taken a stab at making it so). Still, many
Americans spend more than 12 percent of their income for water
and sewer service.
Could San Luis Obispo’s wastewater help save Edna Valley
agriculture? That was the question of the night on Nov. 15 for
the SLO City Council, which took a deep dive into the future of
its recycled water program—including whether it wants to sell
any “extra” water to Edna Valley to help neighboring farmers
reduce their draw on groundwater. By a 4-1 consensus (with
Councilmember Jan Marx dissenting), the City Council agreed
that it’d be a good use of city resources to explore short-term
sales of recycled water to the Edna Valley region.
According to the National Center for Environmental Information,
about 51 percent of the continental United States has been
experiencing drought conditions in the summer of 2022. More
than 70 percent of the western U.S. faces severe drought. The
Colorado River basin supply is rapidly declining, and Lake Mead
and Lake Powell are at critically low levels. Because of this,
the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has declared a Tier 2 water
shortage on the Colorado River impacting seven western states
that depend on water from the river. … In the U.S., more
than 40 percent of the population relies on groundwater for its
drinking water. Groundwater is also used for irrigation,
domestic use, public use, and industrial and mining activities.
Thousands of years ago during the last Ice Age, rivers flowed
from giant glaciers in the Sierra Nevada down to the Central
Valley, carving into rock and gouging channels at a time when
the sea level was about 400 feet lower. When the glaciers
retreated, meltwater coursed down and buried the river channels
in sediment. These channels left by ancient rivers lie hidden
beneath California’s Central Valley. Scientists call them
paleovalleys, or incised valley fill deposits. As much as 100
feet deep and more than a mile wide in places, they are filled
with coarse-grained sand, gravel and cobbles. Because these
paleovalleys are highly permeable, scientists have pointed to
them as ideal pathways for water to quickly percolate down and
recharge groundwater.
Some residents in Planada are calling on county officials to
block a proposed expansion of a dairy. Merced County is
currently in the process of deciding whether to allow the
Hillcrest Dairy just north of the town to expand its herd from
8,050 cows to 9,750 cows. Some residents are saying that the
expansion would make current problems with bad smells and flies
worse, as well as threaten the community’s supply of
groundwater. … The matter is still in the process of review,
and has yet to come before the Board of Supervisors. But it
will ultimately be their call as to whether or not the
expansion with the dairy moves forward.
The Santa Margarita Water District is getting started on its
first drinking water treatment plant, which will be in Rancho
Mission Viejo. … The [Ranch Water Filtration Plant] will
treat groundwater from the San Juan Basin to supply some 1.6
billion gallons of drinking water per year to customers,
according to SMWD Public Information officer Nicole Stanfield.
Currently, all the district’s water is sourced from Northern
California and the Colorado River. The plant, however, would
establish a local source of drinking water.
San Luis Obispo County has been restricting new groundwater
wells in the Paso Robles subbasin for nearly a decade. Now
county supervisors are hoping to tack on a carbon sequestration
mandate.
Starting around November 17, 2022 and lasting up to a month, a
helicopter towing a large hoop from a cable will make low-level
flights over areas of the western San Joaquin Valley in Fresno,
Kings, and Kern Counties near Coalinga and the Pyramid Hills,
with limited surveying near Lost Hills. Residents of these
areas may see a low-flying helicopter towing a large hoop
hanging from a cable. USGS scientists will use the data to
improve understanding of groundwater salinity and below-ground
geology to better understand groundwater conditions near
California’s oil fields. The helicopter will tow a sensor
that resembles a large hula-hoop about 100-200 feet above the
ground to measure small electromagnetic signals.
Already grappling with drought, lower commodity prices and
higher production costs, more farmers are feeling the added
pinch of groundwater regulations as local agencies implement
plans that include pumping limits and new fees to balance
long-term groundwater resources as required by the
state. … Regulations and fees by local agencies as
part of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA,
affect farmers more directly this year, including farmers in
Madera County. Madera County farmer Jay Mahil said
groundwater sustainability agency fees that are part of his
county property tax bill are “coming at a time when growers are
receiving all-time low returns on commodity prices, and farm
input costs have doubled.”
The wheels keep turning in the large-scale Glenn County water
project to help those with dry and drying wells connect to the
city of Orland’s water lines. Over the course of the past year,
the city has been working to connect those on wells within city
limits to the source. Orland City Manager Pete Carr said the
city has connected roughly 12 out of 34 of those households so
far. Carr added that the city expects to have all 34 homes
connected within the next couple of months. As part of the
overall project, DWR has provided some additional funding to
help the city drill a second well and put in an additional
water tank to up the storage in anticipation of the new
customers outside of the county, which consists of about 160
households.
Santa Monica has found itself on the cutting edge of modern
water infrastructure in California, and the latest example of
that innovation is SWIP, the Sustainable Water Infrastructure
Project (SWIP), four years in the making, that is set to open
with a community celebration on Thursday morning, Nov. 17. The
project features some key innovations: a massive, 1.5-million
gallon stormwater harvesting tank that stores water prior to
treatment (meaning the city is far less limited in the amount
of water it can process during storm events); can
simultaneously treat stormwater runoff and wastewater generated
in Santa Monica; is enabled to provide water for irrigation,
dual-piped buildings and groundwater replenishment; and is
poised to convert to potable water supply if and when state
regulations permit.
The federal government is expected to restrict Arizona’s water
supply even more in the coming months due to the megadrought,
heading into the new year. However, no one knows exactly what
that will mean, but we do know the three-decade drought is
shrinking the Colorado River with no end in sight.
… Buckeye’s population is currently at about 75,000 but
sits on 600 square miles of open land with plans to develop
about every last inch, but satisfying thirsty mouths is a drop
in the bucket compared to watering thirsty crops.
.. Buckeye does a leg up, thanks to an underground aquifer
up to a thousand feet deep. Every drop is closely monitored and
replenished by law.
The land along the Arroyo Pasajero Creek, halfway between
Sacramento and Los Angeles, is too dry to farm some years and
dangerously flooded in others. Amid the cycles of wet and dry —
both phenomena exacerbated by climate change — a coalition of
local farmers and the nearby city of Huron are trying to turn
former hemp and tomato fields into massive receptacles that can
hold water as it percolates into the ground during wet
years. This project and others like it across California’s
Central Valley breadbasket aim to capture floodwaters that
would otherwise rush out to the sea, or damage towns, cities
and crops. … The project near Huron is one of about 340
recharge systems that have been proposed by water agencies in
California – enough to store 2.2 million acre-feet by 2030 if
they all are built …
The last time San Luis Obispo ran critically short of water,
the city pumped heavily from wells along Los Osos Valley Road.
The aquifer was so overtaxed by residents and farmers that the
ground sank, resulting multi-million dollar lawsuit settlements
over damaged businesses and homes. Since the 1990s, the city
has adopted a series of water measures — including rebates for
more efficient fixtures, upgrading the sewer plant to deliver
treated water to landscaping, and building a pipeline
delivering water from Lake Nacimiento…. The city is
currently leading the Groundwater Enhancement Project, which it
described as “an initiative to to ensure responsible use of
groundwater in the San Luis Obispo Valley Groundwater Basin.”
By foot, horse, and canoe, European explorers centuries ago
undertook years-long expeditions to document the length and
breadth of major rivers. Today, satellites make the first pass
of discovery. Though rivers meander and melting glaciers birth
new lakes annually, the world’s major drainages have largely
been mapped. Yet one fundamental dimension remains largely a
mystery: the rise and fall of water bodies globally. Accurately
measuring, at low-cost, the weekly changes in rivers, lakes,
and wetlands would allow scientists to observe how much water
moves through them. Land-based gauges do some of this work. But
where gauges are scarce — Alaska, Africa, Asian headwaters —
these numbers are inaccurate or unknown.
The state of California on Thursday sued the manufacturers of a
class of chemicals known as “forever chemicals” that are found
in a variety of consumer items including food packaging and
cookware and are linked to cancer and other illnesses. The
chemicals at the heart of the lawsuit are perfluoroalkyl and
polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly referred to as
PFAS. They are resistant to environmental degradation,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
the Environmental Protection Agency, and hundreds of scientific
studies. They have also been found in the bloodstreams of
98% of people tested, as well as in wildlife, fish, water
— including rivers, lakes and nearshore waters — and soil.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland
may come out of irrigated production in the coming decades to
help balance overdrafted groundwater basins under the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. At the same time,
California needs to ramp up clean energy development to meet
the goals of SB 100—and the valley has high solar potential. At
a virtual event last week, PPIC Water Policy Center research
fellow Andrew Ayres moderated a panel of experts and local
stakeholders; they explored how solar development could help
California meet multiple objectives while overcoming some
challenges and delivering lasting benefits to the region.
In California, the historically unmonitored and unregulated
practice of groundwater pumping has led to declining
groundwater levels in many basins across the state. These
declining levels have also created pockets of displacement —
some greater than 25 feet. … [I]nterferometric synthetic
aperture radar (InSAR), a satellite-based data analysis
technique that measures changes in the earth’s surface over
time with millimeter precision, … has not only enabled the
DWR to develop its first-ever statewide subsidence monitoring
system but it’s also bringing undetected subsidence to the
surface, giving water managers a consistent source of
ground-movement intelligence to help them improve groundwater
management and bring stability to unstable ground.
The Coachella Valley Water District’s board of directors voted
Tuesday to cut back on groundwater replenishment over the next
few years to reduce the district’s Colorado River water use
amid historic drought conditions. Groundwater
replenishment adds water to the local aquifer, which provides
nearly all of the drinking water and domestic water sources in
the Coachella Valley. Earlier this year, the Bureau of
Reclamation called for the seven states that rely on the
Colorado River — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada,
New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — to use at least 15% less water
next year from the drought-stricken river system, or between 2
million and 4 million acre-feet less. An acre-foot, about
326,000 gallons of water, is enough to supply about two
households for a year.
Balancing the state’s groundwater supplies for a sustainable
future may not be easy due to severe drought and ongoing
economic challenges facing farmers. “We’ve got the lowest
prices and highest production costs and the least-reliable
water supply that we’ve had since I’ve been farming,” said Bill
Diedrich of Firebaugh, who farms row crops and permanent crops
on the west side in Madera and Fresno counties…. Diedrich,
who relies on groundwater for irrigating farmland in Madera
County and surface water for ground in Fresno County, said
farming at this time “is very difficult.” He said the 2014
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which tasks local
agencies to balance groundwater supplies in affected basins by
2040 and 2042, means farmland must come out of production.
A Los Angeles County judge on Monday advanced LA’s lawsuit
against Monsanto over chemicals the city says have contaminated
its water supply. Monsanto filed a demurrer — essentially a
series of objections to the city’s complaint — arguing,
among other things, that the city filed a public nuisance claim
“for property located outside the city’s jurisdictional
boundaries.” … The city sued Monsanto in March
over polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency classifies as a “probable”
human carcinogen, and which were banned in 1979 but have
nonetheless lingered in a variety of older products like
paints, sealants and electrical equipment. According to LA’s
complaint, and similar complaints filed by other California
cities, rain causes those chemicals to seep into rivers, lakes
and streams.
Productive agriculture is essential to civilization, but water
privateering – the seizure of public trust water for exorbitant
private profit – is not. California’s water privateers often
present themselves as farmers. But while they may use the water
they’ve commandeered from state and federal water conveyance
projects for industrial-scale agribusiness initiatives, they’re
not farmers. They’re water brokers. If there’s money to be made
in irrigating almonds or pistachios, they’ll do that. If
there’s more money to be made by selling their allocated water
to cities or other agribusiness operations, they’ll choose that
option instead. It’s not about a devotion to agriculture – and
certainly not about food security or land stewardship.
Carbon sequestration garners a lot of attention from those
interested in climate change and sustainable agriculture. The
piece that should be added to much of the conversation,
however, is the relationship of water and carbon. “We
should be considering that carbon sequestration and plant
growth doesn’t happen without water,” says Nick Goeser,
Principal and co-founder of Carbon A List … Goeser,
who co-founded Carbon A List with Christophe Jospe, adds that
raising public awareness that carbon sequestration and
sustainability don’t happen without water is important.
As climate change worsens water quality and threatens
ecosystems, the famous dams of beavers may help lessen the
damage. That is the conclusion of a new study by
Stanford University scientists and colleagues, publishing Nov.
8 in Nature Communications. The research reveals that when
it comes to water quality in mountain watersheds, beaver dams
can have a far greater influence than climate-driven, seasonal
extremes in precipitation. The wooden barriers raise water
levels upstream, diverting water into surrounding soils and
secondary waterways, collectively called a riparian zone. These
zones act like filters, straining out excess nutrients and
contaminants before water re-enters the main channel
downstream.
With a multi-year drought bearing down on California and the
West, there’s an intense focus on nearly every drop of water.
But in a few weeks, we may begin to get a history making look
at where that water is and where it’s going. Not just here, but
around the entire planet. … Using technology, including a
sophisticated form of radar, the satellite will survey and
measure nearly all the water on the Earth’s surface, including
lakes, rivers, reservoirs and the ocean itself.
… Experts believe understanding flood patterns could
help us recover and store valuable water that’s currently being
lost. Perhaps diverting it into underground aquifers or
reservoirs.
Over the past five decades, modern agriculture, driven by the
Green Revolution, has achieved unprecedented high yields
through irrigation and the extensive use of synthetic
fertilisers and pesticides. Unfortunately, this strategy of
intensive food production is not currently sustainable because
it deteriorates terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, depletes
water resources, and contributes towards climate change. To
date, efforts to quantify the environmental footprints of
global production and consumption have covered a wide range of
indicators, including greenhouse gas emissions, water scarcity,
biodiversity, nitrogen pollution, acidification, land
use, and others, but they have largely missed to represent
the environmental pressures exerted by pesticide use.
The Butte County Board of Supervisors will be unveiling,
discussing and likely approving its 2023 Infrastructure Master
Plan as compiled by its Public Works Department at its meeting
Tuesday. Each year the board goes through this process to
determine infrastructure needs. … Presentations will be
provided regarding the California drought as well as an update
on activities by Groundwater Sustainability Agencies.
Over and over again, drought launches California into a
familiar scramble to provide enough water. Cities and towns
call for conservation and brace for shortages. Growers fallow
fields and ranchers sell cows. And thousands of people discover
that they can’t squeeze another drop from their wells. So where
can California get enough water to survive the latest dry
stretch — and the next one, and the next? Can it pump more
water from the salty Pacific Ocean? Treat waste flushed down
toilets and washed down drains? Capture runoff that flows off
streets into storm drains? Tow Antarctic icebergs to Los
Angeles? The Newsom administration unveiled a roadmap
for bolstering the state water supply.
Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and
Science Tanya Trujillo today wrapped a visit to California
where she highlighted historic investments being made through
President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to boost water
infrastructure and tackle western drought. On Thursday,
Assistant Secretary Trujillo joined state and local partners to
commemorate the Water Replenishment District (WRD)’s 60 years
of using recycled water for groundwater replenishment and to
celebrate a $15.4 million investment from the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law for WRD’s Groundwater Reliability
Improvement Program to help protect groundwater resources for 4
million people in the region.
For the past 20 years, two small satellites orbiting 250 miles
above Earth have tracked a stark reality about the nation’s
groundwater supplies, including across the parched Colorado
River Basin: The water underground is vanishing. The NASA
satellites began gathering data in 2002. Since then, Colorado
River Basin groundwater has depleted much faster than water
storage in the nation’s two largest reservoirs, according to
research that underscores concerns about the increasingly tight
water supply in the drought-stricken West. … [H]ydrologist
Jay Famiglietti … highlighted data that showed groundwater
depleting at six and a half times the rate of water storage in
Lake Powell and Lake Mead between 2002 and
2014…. Famiglietti urged more consideration of
groundwater depletion in discussions over the future of the
Colorado River.
In the Utah desert, a treeless expanse of pristine white salt
crystals has long lured daredevil speed racers, filmmakers and
social media-obsessed tourists. It’s so flat that on certain
days, visitors swear they can see the curvature of the earth.
… Research has time and again shown that the briny water in
the aquifer below the flats is depleting faster than nature can
replenish it. As nearby groundwater replaces the mineral-rich
brine, evaporation yields less salt than historic cycles of
flooding and evaporation left on the landscape.
Climate change is contributing to severe droughts in the
southwest United States and elsewhere, increasing the afflicted
areas’ dependence on groundwater. In California, for instance,
groundwater contributes up to 60% of the state’s total water
supply in dry years. Monitoring subterranean aquifers is
crucial to using their water efficiently—and ensuring the
supply doesn’t run dry. But monitoring groundwater isn’t easy.
Traditionally, an aquifer’s water levels are measured using
wells: Hydrologists drill into the ground and measure the pore
pressure at depth, a measurement from which they infer the
amount of water trapped in sediments.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced
funding to the State of California for water infrastructure
improvements under the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). California has been
awarded more than $609 million in capitalization grants through
the State Revolving Funds (SRFs) to supplement the state’s
annual base SRF funding of $144 million. The announcement was
made at the Keyes Community Services District (Keyes CSD), a
community water system that was recently awarded $10.4 million
in SRF loan forgiveness funding, to improve drinking water
quality and compliance at four groundwater wells serving
several small, disadvantaged communities in the area.
You may see low-flying helicopters over the Central Coast. Do
not be alarmed, the California Department of Water Resources
will be using helicopters to do a survey of groundwater
basins. They will be doing electromagnetic surveys to
support drought response. During the surveys, a low-flying
helicopter tows a large hoop with scientific equipment
approximately 100 feet above the ground. The schedule and
map of where the surveys can be found here. … Survey
data creates an image of the subsurface down to a depth of
about 1,000 feet below the ground surface and provides
information about large-scale aquifer structures and geology.
Facing another drought year and the reality that inadequate
groundwater management is leading to a race to the bottom, on
Oct. 4, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors took a critical
step toward sustainable water management by placing a temporary
pause on issuance of new well permits. … Over the next six
months, while the pause is in place, the county will develop
science-based rules to govern groundwater well permits to
ensure impacts of pumping on neighboring streams and downstream
users are accounted for and addressed. All Sonoma County
residents have a stake in improving groundwater management.
This is the county’s chance to change course and ensure we are
better prepared for a warmer future. -Written by Sean Bothwell, executive director for
California Coastkeeper Alliance; and Don
McEnhill, executive director of Russian Riverkeeper.
A local environmental group is suing the county in order to get
it to better regulate groundwater in the lower Eel River.
Friends of the Eel River filed a civil suit against Humboldt
County on Thursday in Humboldt County Superior Court “to secure
protection for the public trust values at risk when groundwater
pumping depletes surface flows in the Lower Eel River,”
according to a release from the group. … Friends of the
Eel River sent the county a letter in mid-August threatening
legal action if it failed to take the public trust doctrine
into account when deciding how to allocate water from the Eel
River.
For centuries people from across the region have observed
Camarguaise bull festivities in the Rhone delta, where the
Rhone river and the Mediterranean Sea meet. But now the
tradition is under threat by rising sea levels, heat waves and
droughts which are making water sources salty and lands
infertile. At the same time, there are efforts by authorities
to preserve more land, leaving less for bulls to graze.
… During summers plagued by high temperatures and
diminished rainfall, the sea water can reach up to 20
kilometers (12 miles) into the Rhone river. During a heat wave
in August this year, the Raynaud family’s water pump in the
Petite Rhone, an offshoot of the main river, began pumping salt
water.
The foundation of California’s water supply and the catalyst
for the state’s 20th century population and economic growth is
cracking. More exactly, it’s disappearing. Climate change is
eroding the mountain snowpack that has traditionally melted in
the spring and summer to fill rivers and reservoirs across the
West. … California officials expect the state could lose
10 percent of its water supply by 2040 … Hoping to get
ahead of that dismal forecast, managers of a major Sierra
Nevada watershed east of Sacramento are replumbing their water
systems to better handle bursts of rain instead of trickling
snowmelt. Their “Supershed Approach” to replace the loss of the
once-reliable snowmelt calls for climate adaptation projects
that stretch from the headwaters of the American River west of
Lake Tahoe, to the foothills and down to the valley floor in
Sacramento.
Local agricultural groups continue to speak out against a new
proposed county ordinance regulating water use from the Paso
Robles Groundwater Basin, which will go before the SLO County
Planning Commission on Oct. 28. The new ordinance, championed
by a majority of the Board of Supervisors, would lift a
basinwide moratorium on groundwater pumping by giving all
property owners up to 25 acre-feet per year of exempted water
use. The current exemption is 5 acre-feet per year. After
months of negotiating with county officials and dissecting its
environmental impact report, SLO County farming groups remain
adamantly opposed to the ordinance, claiming that it will
exacerbate the basin’s overdraft and add “cumbersome” new
layers of regulation on agriculture.
Footprints, human and animal, dot stretches of the Mississippi
River that have been underwater for as long as people remember,
and eight barges have run aground this year. Rain has been
scarce, with little prospect for more. Drought’s deadly fingers
have moved east, from the dried-up wells of California’s
Central Valley and into the American Midwest, where much of
America’s food is grown, and even farther, into the Southeast.
Its tentacles have parched parts of America’s most important
river and now threaten a majority of the country — 52.7% by the
U.S. Drought Monitor’s count, and 146 million people, 12
million more than a mere week ago. It’s the deepest national
drought since 2012, and if nothing changes it’ll outpace that
benchmark soon.
A pilot program in the Salinas Valley run remotely out of Los Angeles is offering a test case for how California could provide clean drinking water for isolated rural communities plagued by contaminated groundwater that lack the financial means or expertise to connect to a larger water system.
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. It was a task that required more than 250
newly formed local groundwater agencies – many of them in the
drought-stressed San Joaquin Valley – to set up shop, gather
data, hear from the public and collaborate with neighbors on
multiple complex plans, often covering just portions of a
groundwater basin.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape while learning about the issues
associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
Water Education Foundation
2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205
Sacramento, CA 95833
This tour traveled along the San Joaquin River to learn firsthand
about one of the nation’s largest and most expensive river
restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Hampton Inn & Suites Fresno
327 E Fir Ave
Fresno, CA 93720
An online
short course starting Thursday will provide
registrants the opportunity to learn more about how groundwater
is monitored, assessed and sustainably managed.
The class, offered by University of California, Davis and
several other organizations in cooperation with the Water
Education Foundation, will be held May 12, 19,
26 and June 2, 16 from 9 a.m. to noon.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
This tour ventured through California’s Central Valley, known as the nation’s breadbasket thanks to an imported supply of surface water and local groundwater. Covering about 20,000 square miles through the heart of the state, the valley provides 25 percent of the nation’s food, including 40 percent of all fruits, nuts and vegetables consumed throughout the country.
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
This tour guided participants on a virtual exploration of the Sacramento River and its tributaries and learn about the issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
As California’s seasons become
warmer and drier, state officials are pondering whether the water
rights permitting system needs revising to better reflect the
reality of climate change’s effect on the timing and volume of
the state’s water supply.
A report by the State Water Resources Control Board recommends
that new water rights permits be tailored to California’s
increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable enough to ensure
water exists to meet an applicant’s demand. And it warns
that the increasingly whiplash nature of California’s changing
climate could require existing rights holders to curtail
diversions more often and in more watersheds — or open
opportunities to grab more water in climate-induced floods.
The San Joaquin Valley has a big
hill to climb in reaching groundwater sustainability. Driven by
the need to keep using water to irrigate the nation’s breadbasket
while complying with California’s Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act, people throughout the valley are looking for
innovative and cost-effective ways to manage and use groundwater
more wisely. Here are three examples.
Groundwater provides about 40
percent of the water in California for urban, rural and
agricultural needs in typical years, and as much as 60 percent in
dry years when surface water supplies are low. But in many areas
of the state, groundwater is being extracted faster than it can
be replenished through natural or artificial means.
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes, pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded ecosystems.
Since 1997, more than 430 engineers,
farmers, environmentalists, lawyers, and others have graduated
from our William R. Gianelli Water Leaders program. We’ve
developed a new alumni network
webpage to help program participants connect and keep in
touch.
An
online short course starting Thursday will provide
registrants the opportunity to learn more about how groundwater
is monitored, assessed and sustainably managed.
The class, offered by UC Davis and several other organizations in
cooperation with the Water Education Foundation, will be
held May 21 and 28, June 4, 18, and 25 from 9 a.m. to noon.
The bill is coming due, literally,
to protect and restore groundwater in California.
Local agencies in the most depleted groundwater basins in
California spent months putting together plans to show how they
will achieve balance in about 20 years.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Our Water 101 Workshop, one of our most popular events, offered attendees the opportunity to deepen their understanding of California’s water history, laws, geography and politics.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the state, the workshop was held as an engaging online event on the afternoons of Thursday, April 22 and Friday, April 23.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
The Water Education Foundation’s Water 101 Workshop, one of our most popular events, offered attendees the opportunity to deepen their understanding of California’s water history, laws, geography and politics.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the state, the one-day workshop held on Feb. 20, 2020 covered the latest on the most compelling issues in California water.
McGeorge School of Law
3327 5th Ave.
Sacramento, CA 95817
A diverse roster of top
policymakers and water experts are on the
agenda for the Foundation’s 36th annual Water
Summit. The conference, Water Year 2020: A Year
of Reckoning, will feature compelling conversations
reflecting on upcoming regulatory deadlines and efforts to
improve water management and policy in the face of natural
disasters.
Tickets for the Water Summit are sold out, but by joining the waitlist we can
let you know when spaces open via cancellations.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
California experienced one of the
most deadly and destructive wildfire years on record in 2018,
with several major fires occurring in the wildland-urban
interface (WUI). These areas, where communities are in close
proximity to undeveloped land at high risk of wildfire, have felt
devastating effects of these disasters, including direct impacts
to water infrastructure and supplies.
One panel at our 2019 Water
Summit Oct. 30 in Sacramento will feature speakers
from water agencies who came face-to-face with two major fires:
The Camp Fire that destroyed most of the town of Paradise in
Northern California, and the Woolsey Fire in the Southern
California coastal mountains. They’ll talk about their
experiences and what lessons they learned.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
Atmospheric rivers, the narrow bands
of moisture that ferry precipitation across the Pacific Ocean to
the West Coast, are necessary to keep California’s water
reservoirs full.
However, some of them are dangerous because the extreme rainfall
and wind can cause catastrophic flooding and damage, much
like what happened in 2017 with Oroville Dam’s spillway.
Learn the latest about atmospheric river research and forecasting
at our 2019 Water
Summit on Oct. 30 in Sacramento, where
prominent research meteorologist Marty Ralph will give the
opening keynote.
With a key deadline for the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in January, one of the
featured panels at our Oct.
30thWater
Summit will focus on how regions around California
are crafting groundwater sustainability plans and working on
innovative ways to fill aquifers.
The theme for this year’s Water Summit, “Water Year 2020: A Year
of Reckoning,” reflects critical upcoming events in California
water, including the imminent Jan. 31, 2020 deadline for
groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) in high- and
medium-priority basins.
Our event calendar is an excellent
resource for keeping up with water events in California and the
West.
Groundwater is top of mind for many water managers as they
prepare to meet next January’s deadline for submitting
sustainability plans required under California’s Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act. We have several upcoming featured
events listed on our calendar that focus on a variety of relevant
groundwater topics:
Registration opens today for the
Water Education Foundation’s 36th annual Water
Summit, set for Oct. 30 in Sacramento. This year’s
theme, Water Year 2020: A Year of Reckoning,
reflects fast-approaching deadlines for the State Groundwater
Management Act as well as the pressing need for new approaches to
water management as California and the West weather intensified
flooding, fire and drought. To register for this can’t-miss
event, visit our Water Summit
event page.
Registration includes a full day of discussions by leading
stakeholders and policymakers on key issues, as well as coffee,
materials, gourmet lunch and an outdoor reception by the
Sacramento River that will offer the opportunity to network with
speakers and other attendees. The summit also features a silent
auction to benefit our Water Leaders program featuring
items up for bid such as kayaking trips, hotel stays and lunches
with key people in the water world.
Summer is a good time to take a
break, relax and enjoy some of the great beaches, waterways and
watersheds around California and the West. We hope you’re getting
a chance to do plenty of that this July.
But in the weekly sprint through work, it’s easy to miss
some interesting nuggets you might want to read. So while we’re
taking a publishing break to work on other water articles planned
for later this year, we want to help you catch up on
Western Water stories from the first half of this year
that you might have missed.
Our 36th annual
Water Summit,
happening Oct. 30 in Sacramento, will feature the theme “Water
Year 2020: A Year of Reckoning,” reflecting upcoming regulatory
deadlines and efforts to improve water management and policy in
the face of natural disasters.
The Summit will feature top policymakers and leading stakeholders
providing the latest information and a variety of viewpoints on
issues affecting water across California and the West.
One of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade
Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within
weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that
Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.
That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach”
on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded
floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.
Groundwater helped make Kern County
the king of California agricultural production, with a $7 billion
annual array of crops that help feed the nation. That success has
come at a price, however. Decades of unchecked groundwater
pumping in the county and elsewhere across the state have left
some aquifers severely depleted. Now, the county’s water managers
have less than a year left to devise a plan that manages and
protects groundwater for the long term, yet ensures that Kern
County’s economy can continue to thrive, even with less water.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.
In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)
Imported water from the Sierra
Nevada and the Colorado River built Southern California. Yet as
drought, climate change and environmental concerns render those
supplies increasingly at risk, the Southland’s cities have ramped
up their efforts to rely more on local sources and less on
imported water.
Far and away the most ambitious goal has been set by the city of
Santa Monica, which in 2014 embarked on a course to be virtually
water independent through local sources by 2023. In the 1990s,
Santa Monica was completely dependent on imported water. Now, it
derives more than 70 percent of its water locally.
The whims of political fate decided
in 2018 that state bond money would not be forthcoming to help
repair the subsidence-damaged parts of Friant-Kern Canal, the
152-mile conduit that conveys water from the San Joaquin River to
farms that fuel a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy along
the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.
Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of Oroville Dam spillway
repairs.
One of our most popular events, our annual Water 101 Workshop
details the history, geography, legal and political facets
of water in California as well as hot topics currently facing the
state.
Taught by some of the leading policy and legal experts in the
state, the one-day workshop on Feb. 7 gave attendees a
deeper understanding of the state’s most precious natural
resources.
Optional Groundwater Tour
On Feb. 8, we jumped aboard a bus to explore groundwater, a key
resource in California. Led by Foundation staff and groundwater
experts Thomas
Harter and Carl Hauge, retired DWR chief hydrogeologist, the
tour visited cities and farms using groundwater, examined a
subsidence measuring station and provided the latest updates
on the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
McGeorge School of Law
3327 5th Ave.
Sacramento, CA 95817
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
More than a decade in the making, an
ambitious plan to deal with the vexing problem of salt and
nitrates in the soils that seep into key groundwater basins of
the Central Valley is moving toward implementation. But its
authors are not who you might expect.
An unusual collaboration of agricultural interests, cities, water
agencies and environmental justice advocates collaborated for
years to find common ground to address a set of problems that
have rendered family wells undrinkable and some soil virtually
unusable for farming.
As California embarks on its unprecedented mission to harness groundwater pumping, the Arizona desert may provide one guide that local managers can look to as they seek to arrest years of overdraft.
Groundwater is stressed by a demand that often outpaces natural and artificial recharge. In California, awareness of groundwater’s importance resulted in the landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 that aims to have the most severely depleted basins in a state of balance in about 20 years.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.
Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of repair efforts on the
Oroville Dam spillway.
Participants of this tour snaked along the San Joaquin River to
learn firsthand about one of the nation’s largest and most
expensive river restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Groundwater replenishment happens
through direct recharge and in-lieu recharge. Water used for
direct recharge most often comes from flood flows, water
conservation, recycled water, desalination and water
transfers.
One of the wettest years in California history that ended a
record five-year drought has rejuvenated the call for new storage
to be built above and below ground.
In a state that depends on large surface water reservoirs to help
store water before moving it hundreds of miles to where it is
used, a wet year after a long drought has some people yearning
for a place to sock away some of those flood flows for when they
are needed.
Sinkholes are caused by erosion of
rocks beneath soil’s surface. Groundwater dissolves soft
rocks such as gypsum, salt and limestone, leaving gaps in the
originally solid structure. This is exacerbated when water is
acidic from contact with carbon dioxide or acid rain. Even
humidity can play a major role in destabilizing water
underground.
Irrigation is the artificial supply
of water to grow crops or plants. Obtained from either surface or groundwater, it optimizes
agricultural production when the amount of rain and where it
falls is insufficient. Different irrigation
systems are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but in
practical use are often combined. Much of the agriculture in
California and the West relies on irrigation.
The United States
Geographical Survey (USGS) defines freshwater as containing
less than 1,000 milligrams per liter dissolved solids. However,
500 milligrams per liter is usually the cutoff for municipal and
commercial use. Most of the Earth’s water is saline, 97.5
percent with only 2.5 percent fresh.
Springs are where groundwater becomes surface water, acting as openings
where subsurface water can discharge onto the ground or directly
into other water bodies. They can also be considered the
consequence of an overflowing
aquifer. As a result, springs often serve as headwaters to streams.
Potable water, also known as
drinking water, comes from surface and ground sources and is
treated to levels that that meet state and federal standards for
consumption.
Water from natural sources is treated for microorganisms,
bacteria, toxic chemicals, viruses and fecal matter. Drinking
raw, untreated water can cause gastrointestinal problems such as
diarrhea, vomiting or fever.
Extensometers are among the most valuable devices hydrogeologists
use to measure subsidence, but most people – even water
professionals – have never seen one. They are sensitive and
carefully calibrated, so they are kept under lock and key and are
often in remote locations on private property.
During our California
Groundwater Tour Oct. 5-6, you will see two types of
extensometers used by the California Department of Water
Resources to monitor changes in elevation caused by groundwater
overdraft.
Flowing into the heart of the Mojave Desert, the Mojave River
exists mostly underground. Surface channels are usually dry
absent occasional groundwater surfacing and flooding
from extreme weather events like El Niño.
Alluvium generally refers to the clay, silt, sand and gravel that
are deposited by a stream, creek or other water body.
Alluvium is found around deltas and rivers, frequently
making soils very fertile. Alternatively, “colluvium” refers to
the accumulation at the base of hills, brought there from runoff
(as opposed to a water body). The Oxnard Plain in Ventura
County is a visible alluvial plain, where floodplains have
drifted over time due to gradual deposits of alluvium, a feature
also present in Red Rock Canyon State Park in Kern County.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This issue looks at remote sensing applications and how satellite
information enables analysts to get a better understanding of
snowpack, how much water a plant actually uses, groundwater
levels, levee stability and more.
This handbook provides crucial
background information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The handbook
also includes a section on options for new governance.
This 2-day, 1-night tour traveled through Inland
Southern California to learn about the region’s efforts in
groundwater management, recycled water and other drought-proofing
measures.
This 2-day, 1-night tour traveled from the
Sacramento region to Napa Valley to view sites that explore
groundwater issues. Topics included groundwater quality,
overdraft and subsidence, agricultural use, wells, and regional
management efforts.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater is an in-depth,
easy-to-understand publication that provides background and
perspective on groundwater. The guide explains what groundwater
is – not an underground network of rivers and lakes! – and the
history of its use in California.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to
Water Rights Law, recognized as the most thorough explanation of
California water rights law available to non-lawyers, traces the
authority for water flowing in a stream or reservoir, from a
faucet or into an irrigation ditch through the complex web of
California water rights.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at California
groundwater and whether its sustainability can be assured by
local, regional and state management. For more background
information on groundwater please refer to the Foundation’s
Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater management and the extent to which stakeholders
believe more efforts are needed to preserve and restore the
resource.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” in California. Much of the information
in the article was presented at a conference hosted by the
Groundwater Resources Association of California.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater banking, a water management strategy with appreciable
benefits but not without challenges and controversy.
This printed issue of Western Water features a
roundtable discussion with Anthony Saracino, a water resources
consultant; Martha Davis, executive manager of policy development
with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and senior policy advisor
to the Delta Stewardship Council; Stuart Leavenworth, editorial
page editor of The Sacramento Bee and Ellen Hanak, co-director of
research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of
California.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at some of
the pieces of the 2009 water legislation, including the Delta
Stewardship Council, the new requirements for groundwater
monitoring and the proposed water bond.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
desalination – an issue that is marked by great optimism and
controversy – and the expected role it might play as an
alternative water supply strategy.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the Russian and
Santa Ana rivers – areas with ongoing issues not dissimilar to
the rest of the state – managing supplies within a lingering
drought, improving water quality and revitalizing and restoring
the vestiges of the native past.
This printed copy of Western Water examines California’s drought
– its impact on water users in the urban and agricultural sector
and the steps being taken to prepare for another dry year should
it arrive.
Statewide, groundwater provides about 30 percent of California’s
water supply, with some regions more dependent on it than others.
In drier years, groundwater provides a higher percentage of the
water supply. Groundwater is less known than surface water but no
less important. Its potential for helping to meet the state’s
growing water demand has spurred greater attention toward gaining
a better understanding of its overall value. This issue of
Western Water examines groundwater storage and its increasing
importance in California’s future water policy.
This issue of Western Water examines the issue of California
groundwater management, in light of recent attention focused on
the subject through legislative actions and the release of the
draft Bulletin 118. In addition to providing an overview of
groundwater and management options, it offers a glimpse of what
the future may hold and some background information on
groundwater hydrology and law.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
This 7-minute DVD is designed to teach children in grades 5-12
about where storm water goes – and why it is so important to
clean up trash, use pesticides and fertilizers wisely, and
prevent other chemicals from going down the storm drain. The
video’s teenage actors explain the water cycle and the difference
between sewer drains and storm drains, how storm drain water is
not treated prior to running into a river or other waterway. The
teens also offer a list of BMPs – best management practices that
homeowners can do to prevent storm water pollution.
Fashioned after the popular California Water Map, this 24×36 inch
poster was extensively re-designed in 2017 to better illustrate
the value and use of groundwater in California, the main types of
aquifers, and the connection between groundwater and surface
water.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water
supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing
treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including
irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge
and industrial uses.
The 20-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Marketing provides
background information on water rights, types of transfers and
critical policy issues surrounding this topic. First published in
1996, the 2005 version offers expanded information on
groundwater banking and conjunctive use, Colorado River
transfers and the role of private companies in California’s
developing water market.
Order in bulk (25 or more copies of the same guide) for a reduced
fee. Contact the Foundation, 916-444-6240, for details.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Nevada Water provides an
overview of the history of water development and use in Nevada.
It includes sections on Nevada’s water rights laws, the history
of the Truckee and Carson rivers, water supplies for the Las
Vegas area, groundwater, water quality, environmental issues and
today’s water supply challenges.
Seawater intrusion can harm groundwater quality in a variety of
places, both coastal and inland, throughout California.
Along the coast, seawater intrusion into aquifers is connected to overdrafting of
groundwater. Additionally, in the interior, groundwater
pumping can draw up salty water from ancient seawater isolated in
subsurface sediments.
Overdraft occurs when, over a period of years, more water is
pumped from a groundwater basin than is replaced from all sources
– such as rainfall, irrigation water, streams fed by mountain
runoff and intentional recharge. [See also Hydrologic Cycle.]
While many of its individual aquifers are not overdrafted,
California as a whole uses more groundwater than is replaced.
The treatment of groundwater— the primary source of drinking
water and irrigation water in many parts of the United States —
varies from community to community, and even from well to well
within a city depending on what contaminants the water contains.
In California, one-half of the state’s population drinks water
drawn from underground sources [the remainder is provided by
surface water].
Groundwater management is recognized
as critical to supporting the long-term viability of California’s
aquifers and protecting the
nearby surface waters that are connected to groundwater.
California has considered, but not implemented, a comprehensive
groundwater strategy many
times over the last century.
One hundred years ago, the California Conservation Commission
considered adding groundwater regulation into the Water
Commission Act of 1913. After hearings were held, it was
decided to leave groundwater rights out of the Water Code.
California, like most arid Western states, has a complex system
of surface water rights
that accounts for nearly all of the water in rivers and streams.
Groundwater banking is a process of diverting floodwaters or
other surface water into
an aquifer where it can be
stored until it is needed later. In a twist of fate, the space
made available by emptying some aquifers opened the door for the
banking activities used so extensively today.
When multiple parties withdraw water from the same aquifer,
groundwater pumpers can ask the court to adjudicate, or hear
arguments for and against, to better define the rights that
various entities have to use groundwater resources. This is known
as groundwater adjudication. [See also California
water rights and Groundwater Law.]
California’s enormous cache of underground water is a great
natural resource and has contributed to the state becoming the
nation’s top agricultural producer and leader in high-tech
industries.
Groundwater is also increasingly relied upon by growing cities
and thirsty farms, and it plays an important role in the future
sustainability of California’s overall water supply.
For something so largely hidden from view, groundwater is an
important and controversial part of California’s water supply
picture. How it should be managed and whether it becomes part of
overarching state regulation is a topic of strong debate.
In early June, environmentalists and Delta water agencies sued
the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the Kern
County Water Agency (KCWA) over the validity of the transfer of
the Kern Water Bank, a huge underground reservoir that supplies
water to farms and cities locally and outside the area. The suit,
which culminates a decade-long controversy involving multiple
issues of state and local jurisdictional authority, has put the
spotlight on groundwater banking – an important but controversial
water management practice in many areas of California.
Groundwater, out of sight and out of mind to most people, is
taking on an increased role in California’s water future.
Often overlooked and misunderstood, groundwater’s profile is
being elevated as various scenarios combine to cloud the water
supply outlook. A dry 2006-2007 water year (downtown Los Angeles
received a record low amount of rain), crisis conditions in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the mounting evidence of climate
change have invigorated efforts to further utilize aquifers as a
reliable source of water supply.
When you drink the water, remember the spring. – Chinese proverb
Water is everywhere. Viewed from outer space, the Earth radiates
a blue glow from the oceans that dominate its surface. Atop the
sea and land, huge clouds of water vapor swirl around the globe,
propelling the weather system that sustains life. Along the way,
water, which an ancient sage called “the noblest of elements,”
transforms from vapor to liquid and to solid form as it falls
from the atmosphere to the surface, trickles below ground and
ultimately returns skyward.
Traditionally treated as two separate resources, surface water
and groundwater are increasingly linked in California as water
leaders search for a way to close the gap between water demand
and water supply. Although some water districts have coordinated
use of surface water and groundwater for years, conjunctive use
has become the catchphrase when it comes to developing additional
water supply for the 21st century.
